Since you asked, I spent yesterday (in between hating my country, of course), taking my 3 year-old to see Brother Bear at the movie theater and cleaning the house in anticipation of my in-laws coming to visit for the holidays. (Hating your country is so much easier when the house is clean, you know.)

And today, I woke up early, hated my country, then boarded a 7am flight to Detroit where, in between hating my country and all it represents, I met with several of my customers and discussed their upgrade plans with regards to my company’s software. (If you’re interested in what I do for a living — though hating America is its own full-time job, it doesn’t pay the bills — feel free to read today’s InfoWorld for an idea of what I do.)

My flight was delayed — surely a plot by the evil administration running our evil nation — and I returned to my house around 9:30pm. I’m tired, but figure I can get another two hours or so of good old-fashioned country-hating in if I put my mind to it.

Jeff, you’re more than welcome to post here. And as many of my staunchly Republican friends and family members will tell you, I absolutely adore a spirited debate when we put our cards down, argue issues, and change each other’s point of view. But when you descend to accusing me of hating my country, or of being hypocritical, then I’ve lost interest in chatting. Not because your comments are getting to me but because you clearly have no interest in debating but simply insulting me.

Good luck to you. I’ll post some thoughts on Saddam’s capture shortly, just as soon as I get in some good ol’ country-hatin’…

5 comments:

The truth is that we 'actually' mean that blaming America instead of dealing with the issues in the world of foreign policy is an "anti-American" approach to dissenting in America. You disagree with Bush? Hate him? Fine. I have no problems with that.

But to suggest that our Military Troops are fighting a war that as you basically say in your response, "has very little to do with the War on Terrorism," you are saying that a Foreign Policy is a 'Mistake' and a "Waste of Time." Any amount of success conducted in Iraq will not convince you that we are doing the "right thing" unless it has Howard Dean's stamp of approval (which it never does and don't hold your breath).

Let me tell you something Rick. Have you ever heard about 'Politics stops at the water's edge?'

Have you heard that phrase before? Even once? If not, then you are indeed an "Anti-American" who has no idea that he is one. And you are no different than the hundreds of Anti-Americans who continue to attack Bush by reducing our Successful Foreign Policy to nothing more than "Insignficant."

Where do we draw the line Rick, when it comes to simply be in opposition to Bush? the Howard Dean camp knows no boundaries and they do not understand WHY they should draw a line let a long where. How's about the Water's Edge for a change? (Oh and just so you know, I *did* draw the line at the water's edge and supported EVERY SINGLE WAR ever conducted by any American President, EVER, during my entire life).

Dissenting is fine... But not beyond the water's edge. It just looks like you 'hate America' even if your 'Intentions' are actually quite different.

Oh Jeff, once again, why let the facts get in the way of a good diatribe. Hauling out that old cliche about the water's edge, when your own party has disavowed it so many times? Remember the adage about the glass house? I am sure you'll come up with some really good rebuttals about why this incident is distinguishable from the current situation, and I can't wait to see them.

From the Washington Post, 12/17/98:

"The unwritten rule that politics stops at the water's edge was rudely shattered yesterday, as many congressional Republicans who have long distrusted and reviled President Clinton sharply criticized his motivations in bombing Iraq on the eve of a House vote on impeachment.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) declared that he could not support Clinton's decision and joined many House Republicans in questioning whether the attack might be a desperate effort to frustrate the impeachment action."

I found a quote from an old Washington Post editor, Felix Morley, who said, "Politics stops at the water's edge only when policy stops at the water's edge."

President Bush, according to Condoleezza Rice's public testimony at the 9-11 commission has an agenda to change the governing culture of the middle east. To wit, Rice said, "One of the most difficult problems in the Middle East is that the United States has been associated for a long time, decades, with a policy that looks the other way on the freedom deficit in the Middle East, that looks the other way at the absence of individual liberties in the Middle East. And I think that that has tended to alienate us from the populations of the Middle East. And when the president, at White Hall in London, said that that was no longer going to be the stance of the United States, we were expecting more from our friends, we were going to try and engage those in those in those countries who wanted to have a different kind of Middle East, I believe that he was resonating with trends that are there in the Middle East,"

The war in Iraq is in pursuit of this vision. Whether or not one agrees with that vision recognition need be made that Mr. Bush took an oath to, "...preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States of America." Nowhere does the constitution empower the government to tax Americans to change the governments of other countries or regions of the world.

America's invasion of Iraq is not in defense of our Constitutional system of government and is, in fact, an assault on its principles and the principles that the American Revolution was fought to defend. As proof of that latter assertion I offer, from the preamble of the Declaration of Independence, "When in the Course of human events, it becomes neccessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and naure's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." In other words the American patiots fought in 1776 to earn the respect of being an independent sovereign nation.

In the case of the invasion of Iraq--and the 10 year siege that was conducted against her--we denied that same respect to another sovereign nation. If the officials in our government actually honored their oaths of office and respected the principles that founded the revolution and constitution, they would be careful to conduct foreign policy within the parameters that constitutional law allows.

When they violate those limits we have a duty to scrutinize their behavior and take proper steps to motivate change in their conduct remove them from office through the electoral process.

Consequently, I will not be voting for George Bush this fall and I will not allow a lame cliche coined during the interlude between WWII and the Cold War to prevent me from using the invasion of Iraq as a reason to influence others to vote similarly.